The pretender
by zman123
Summary: Ellen thought that betraying her friend would give her a happy life with a loving father and a body that "Hurt much less" while allowing her to leave the guilt of her previous actions behind. Little did she know how mistaken she was, as guilt over her greatest sin drives her further into pain. But perhaps a fighting chance at redemption exists and with it a chance to regain sanity.
1. Chapter 1

The blonde girl shook uncontrollably as she stirred from short and painful sleep, the moonless sky outside still pitch black. Her eyes, fatigued as they were snapped open and she almost bit out her tongue in panic as she slowly dared a look at the room around her.

Loud satisfied yawns rang from down the hallway, the yawns of her still sleeping father after another long and exhausting day in the woods. A kindly man, her father was, working his back off hand and foot each day so that he might put food on the table for his beloved daughter, the only family he had left since his dear wife who he cherished with all his heart left him.

Her departure had shattered him so that even now, happy and grateful as he seemed each day to have her by his side, would never smile or laugh in the carefree manner he once did. He had given up being a man long ago, and what poor Viola saw now was an empty shell of what remained.

That only increased her respect and admiration for the humble, hard working hunter who despite his gentle, altruistic nature was not afraid to get his dirty when it was the right thing to do.

"What a kind man." Thought Viola to herself despite the terrible shock she was still in. And hearing the tiredness in his voice as he continued to snooze contentedly down the hallway, she resisted the urge to rush out of her bedroom and beg for him to comfort her, as happy as that would have made her. Her father needed his rest, and she was not about to trouble him needlessly. Not that he could have helped her much anyhow. And not that he hadn't tried.

Viola sighed angrily, as she buried her face in her palms. She really deserved no better, she told herself.

"So get over it, come on. The past is in the past. Your friend is dead now, and no amount of begging or pleading can bring the poor girl back." she muttered desperately, as she battled to keep a fresh flow of tears leaking from her already red and painful eyes.

"Focusing on what's happened will only make things worse. You've made new friends since then, and your old friend would want you to be happy wherever you were. You have a lovely father who cherishes you dearly and sticks by you no matter what too."

Another long painful sigh, but somehow, no tears came despite her relaxing herself to let them flow freely out if they came.

"You're lucky to still be alive. You should have died back there in that dangerous house where everyone and everything wanted you dead. It was sheer luck you made it. Shouldn't you be happy that you've made it out of there in one piece."

But even as she said those words, she knew them to be as hollow as her heart had been since the day she lost her very best friend.  
That poor girl really did not deserve such a horrific death in such a painful manner.  
But alas, sometimes life was taken away from a person even when they did not deserve it. And not all friends or families got to spend the time they would have liked with each other as close as they were. She had learned this the hard way long ago.

"Three years it's been and still you continue to cry over spilled milk. Three long years have passed and you still can't move on even though you know full well it was your fault your friend ended up how she did. You really are pathetic, you know that." she muttered disappointed.

Viola stared out of the window at the beautiful forest outside.

Even in the pitch blackness with no moonlight, she still made out the unmistakable shape of where her and her long dead friend would play together on the days when her friend could spare even the smallest amount of time for her.

That house, eerie and sinister as it appeared to most others, was for her a place of memories and joy when she thought of the happy and fun times she had spent there with her one and only friend, who wanted to get to know her and saw the good in her even after everyone else had left her for dead and chosen to outright shun her existence.

A house where her heart still lay even now.

Three years to most people must have seemed short and superficial with how quickly they must have passed, but for poor Viola, they seemed to crawl by like centuries. She felt as if she had lived not just a whole life by now, but for a long time on borrowed time as well.

She was but sixteen this year, but the pain in her chest and her aching and weakened joints made her feel at least eighty five, if not older still.

Survivor's guilt, it seemed, really did exist after all. And it really did hurt so much worse than any malady or plague that could be treated or at least numbed with medicines, ointments and tonics.

Wounds could be stitched up, and broken bones could be held together with splints and tape while they healed while a crutch and prosthetic limbs could help a paralyzed person to walk.

But despite the many advances in medicines and science that Viola had seen in the rapidly industrializing world that she and her father were lucky to live in, she knew full well none of them could even begin to try and soothe the never ending pains that seemed only to grow daily worse and worse.

Before they might have, but certainly not now.

So much had happened in three short years and she had grown so much as a young lady, but Viola's pining for that girl she once called "friend" had never waned or faltered.

She had changed so much and looked so different, but ultimately she felt no better about herself. Her nightmares had grown more monstrous still with every attempt to sleep, so that even sleeping pills which she had began taking some one year ago, did little to help the insomnia she had slowly developed.

Her love for her father was the one thing that had never changed along with her guilt, and it was the one thing that gave her hope for the dark days ahead, which would no doubt only darken still. And even that was only a poor excuse for why she still saw reason to live.

She called him "Father", even though still it was clear that she had once referred to someone else by the same title. "Stepfather" would have been more appropriate but of course, but the time for that had passed long ago, and she would simply sound rude and irrational calling him that now.

But alas, if she did take her own life (a thought that had indeed crossed her mind time and time again) he would be left depressed and sad.

And if the one promise she would never break, regardless of the many she hadn't kept before, was the one she had made to her friend on her deathbed even as she turned away from her dying friend for the last time. This was one vow she'd keep, she'd even swore to herself.

She'd promised her friend to love her father. And that meant keeping him happy and safe at all costs. And even though it pained her to keep this facade she had kept for so long now despite it seeming no realer to her now than when she began it those 3 years ago, she knew that for once it was better to lie than tell the truth as wrong as that sounded.

Even now she thought of that rope in the attic she had prepared in secret some time ago. The attic was a place her and her father left largely unused so he had not yet seen the stool she had also left in that room, which even now continued to gather dust.

She managed with shaking legs and half closed eyes to stand and make her way to the doorway.

She managed with shallow and rattling breath to take several steps forward so that she was halfway down the hall, and the stairs to the attic were but a few steps within sight.

She was about to take one step more forward when she managed with a jerk, to slap herself in the face.

"No. Stop being such a coward. That's the easy way out you promised everyone including yourself you wouldn't take." she yelled, accidentally raising her voice. Not caring if anyone heard her now or not.

"And wasn't the entire reason you let her down so you could keep on living long after you weren't supposed to."

She blinked, and shook once more as she dragged herself back to her bedroom, slapping herself once more as she did so.

"I let you down." she whispered, as she stared at a photo of herself her father had taken to celebrate her thirteenth birthday. "I'm sorry. Really I am. I'm really sorry"

And as she trudged wearily back into bed, and almost fell with exhaustion onto the sheets, she finally understood what could be worse than 3 years ago when she didn't have the strong and healthy body she had today, and when her throat struggled to form even short syllables without it feeling like an arsonist had lit a roaring fire in it.

When every movement caused her to spasm and often cry out in agony, with how seized up her muscles were.

When she spent not just the night, but the entire day from the small hours of dawn, on a bed unable to leave it.

She had left behind her old pains when she made her plans, only to miss them.

Her new pain which came as a result of the regret which at first she felt she could ignore, made death seem like a welcoming sensation.

She imagined herself talking happily to her friend as she lay on what used to be her bed, and promised that this was how she would remember the relationship they once shared and still did now even beyond the grave.

She looked at another picture on her nightstand where she and her stepfather who she called her father sat contentedly side by side at the fireplace after a hard day of gathering firewood in the forest. She promised that this was how she would remember her family, or at least the family she was part of now, and rubbed the image of the man and woman who had ruthlessly disregarded her before out of her thoughts, like an eraser and a pencil drawing.

It helped that so long had passed she barely remembered what they even looked like or were called.

"It's a lie" she whispered to herself, as she set down to try and glean what little sleep this fatigue she had built up would gift to her before morning and another hard day of helping her father work would begin. "It's all a lie.".


	2. Hope

"If you ever come back, you can have it back. I'll give back what I took so you can have it." sobbed the blonde girl, sat in a room upstairs resting where her father could neither see or hear her.

But she would never come back and that was that. She had been killed by her own father, and probably consumed by that demon cat as another one of his meal, so that not only was she dead but unlikely to move on to any kind of happy afterlife which a kindly saint like her so richly deserved.

She had slunk back to the house which used to be her own some time ago in the first year after she lost her friend, knowing full well the risks and dangers still present. She had searched every last room, despite seeing her friends death with her own eyes, hoping that just perhaps her friend had found a way to stay alive after all despite how illogical that sounded.

She once again braved the risk of the many traps and murderous creatures lying in wait for her, it was like heading into a meat grinder. Spears flew at her from hidden holes in walls, floor tiles opened up beneath her in a frantic attempt to dump her into pits filled with razor spikes, and even a seemingly harmless toy rifleman with what seemed to be a fake gun opened fire on her.

Her hope at the slight chance of finding her friend not dead after all, strengthened her resolve and she passed through each room unfazed with a stoic face that betrayed no fear. She had searched every room in the house, including the hard to reach basement and the even harder to access attic, but seen no trace of her friend not surprisingly.

She had returned home that night, earning nothing but a large cut on her arm, and a slight bruise on her leg from when a gigantic hatchet had swung at her catching her surprise, and she had just managed in the nick of time to dive out of the way so that it only sliced her sleeve, while landing roughly on her knee as she slightly misjudged the leap and lost balance so that she fell roughly on the floor.

When asked why in the world she would choose to back that dangerous house which had nearly killed her, she replied that she had gone back to pay her respects to her once good friend since she was badly missed. The man nodded respectfully and patted her gently on the back, saying that her friend was lucky to have someone like her who cared about her so greatly.

She'd much rather he shot at her and burned her corpse in a roaring fire for all the comfort his kind words provided to her. That would have been the appropriate thing to do to a double crosser like her who rightfully deserved no friends. But if he did that then, in the very remote chance that her friend did come back by some miracle she'd never be able to have her strong, healthy body back and that wouldn't be right.

It'd also leave the good man she now called "daddy" to fend for himself, and though he was of course like any good hunter a sizable man with a good sized rifle on him at all times when he left the safety of their cottage, she could tell that had it not been for her interventions in the past 3 years she'd had him for a father he'd have died gruesomely several times over by now. It was one of the few things she took pride in, and one of the few reasons she gave herself to keep going lest he find himself in another near death experience where he needed a selfless guard willing to defend him at any cost.

She had made keeping her new father alive her life's goal, though that had been easier said than done. That and trying to repay the kind, loving world which now showered her with all the attention and love she could possibly ask for and much more.

It did feel good to be smiled upon and greet respectfully when she went into town, and invited to join the many fun and thrilling games which she could now freely play with her healthy, strong body which she stole.

She had always wanted to be part of that incredible sport they called "football". It felt good to feel the blood racing in her legs as she dashed for the ball along with her newfound friends, smiling and shouting as she went faster and was miles better than spending all day locked alone in bed with nothing to do but stare blankly at the walls, no one to talk to since it was a long time before her one friend came upon her during one of her days off where she decided to explore that one part of the woods she had never been to before, and which she should never have ventured into.

It was with a great effort and a lot of pain, that she had managed to stagger to the door to welcome the stranger to the house, since it was clear that a large storm was coming in and at least from those beautiful shining blue eyes that made the stars in the sky look dim in comparison, this girl certainly seemed a trustworthy sort. Better than all those others who had come only to run when they saw that she was trying without success to hide the terrible illness she had been born with, or worse yet to vandalize her carefully ordered house and take her precious sweets away without asking permission.

Their friendship grew from there, after that nice girl whose sympathy towards her illness made her wonder whether she was actually one of those angels who occasionally came down to earth in disguise. In return she gave the girl some warm tea to warm her back up seeing she was cold, and offered to let her stay by the fireplace until the storm abated. She gratefully agreed and seemed very thankful to be shown such kindness by a shady looking stranger.

It was then that she had occasional friendly visits to look forward to, as caring as her one friend truly was to her she could not come and visit her again every single day. And as much as she loathed the thought of what she was about to do what was then the only person in the cold, miserable world worth anything to her, she knew that this meant the long wait for her plan to unfold was finally over since the body swapping spell needed both trust and permission to take effect successfully.

And the poor naive girl who was easily taken by her plea for just one day in a healthy, painless body to enjoy the life she'd never had as her last wish.  
And from there on, the rest was easy enough although she preferred not to think on the rest.

Suffice to say that her friend was soon killed as she battled for control of her body once more, and was shot by the closest person to her. The kind man she now called daddy, but was in reality only her friend's daddy.

She held no grudge against her friend for that, her friend only wanted her daddy safe and sound from the cruel schemes a traitor who would betray their first and only friend was bound to have in store since very few serial killers, or any kind of remorseless criminal simply woke up one day vowing to completely mend their ways for real of their own accord. Most criminals wouldn't change their ways even when they were staring down the barrel of thirty rifles, or if they did, would soon go back to their old ways after they had successfully concealed themselves from justice again.

Whether this made her any better or not, she didn't know, but it did make her "special" she guessed.  
Ever since the body swap had been successful, she had done her very best to amend her malign natures, even if at first only to conceal her true identity but then later to try and leave her troubled past mistakes in the past. She threw a coin to the beggar who sat in the street begging for mercy as well as telling him that plenty of help was needed at the butcher's her father sold his meat to.  
She buried the dead squirrel she found with its throat brutally ripped out in a clearing, and even laid a few flowers she found nearby onto its grave so that its soul might rest peacefully.

And on Sundays, with her father's permission she went to church in her best clothes, washed and cleaned as best she could and sat quietly as the priest chanted prayers, only speaking when asked to. She never missed a week there, even if she came down with a unpleasant cold. If she could force herself to walk, or even limp to the small but ornately and neatly furnished edifice which housed the holy building, she went despite half expecting the winged statue on the roof to swoop down and decapitate her head yelling "how dare you show your face here after what you've done. You don't deserve the father's love."

It almost broke her heart, but it was one of the few things keeping her sane.

Three years had been far from uneventful, and she liked it oddly enough in a morbid sort of way.

She had been taught by her new father to shoot and use a rifle, so that she was now almost as precise and deadly as he was in the hunt after she had barely managed to save him from a bespoken predator that had faded into myth and legends.

She had made a romantic partner in a handsome and optimistic blonde young boy who she spared from a nasty experience at the surgeons office. The clearly mad doctor had clearly intended on removing the ache in his sprained ankle permanently although not in a way that he, or anyone in their right mind for that matter would have wanted. This was one of her more pleasant memories, since she had reprimanded a pretender and serial killer, and stopped their bloody killing spree since the crazed surgeon had a equally as deranged assistant who had tried to jump her at the last minute. She had done a good, if somewhat hypocritical thing for the law.

He had thanked her, and apologized for thinking that this beast who would go so far as to kill him too would be any different from her even more menacing father who he had dealt with in the past. "I've already had to deal with a crazy psychopath once in my life. And one is already far too many" he joked, once he had been cut free from the bed he was tied to.

"Then that makes three of those altogether I'm afraid, one of which I doubt will ever get their comeuppance. Four if you count that assistant as well." she thought sadly but managed not to let on, as she led him outside and directed him to the town near her forest, if he needed a bed for the night.

He settled there, having nowhere much else to go, and the two saw each other far more frequently.

"I've heard good things about you." he would sometimes tell her, as she returned home after a bizarre venture involving a lot of guns. "It's good to see someone who for once I can trust as a friend."

"Well you shouldn't" the blonde girl had whispered to herself as he took her to the bar for another drink "Since if you ask my last friend, you'd probably not want to touch me with a barge pole. I'm no better than that surgeon really if you look at how many people I've killed."

The rest, she remembered only in broken fragments save for rare nights when the sky was clear, and the breeze was calm.

Perhaps the one time she had looked through the telescope on a ship she had been travelling on, was one time she treasured most out of these short, and hectic 3 years.

It was there that she saw her friend's name spelled out clearly among the constellations. She rubbed her eyes and shook herself, clearly trying to tell herself it was but a delusion and she was just dreaming, but when she looked again it had not gone.

The name "Viola" was clearly written out among the bunch of stars, clear as a whistle. As much as she tried to argue that she was seeing things, there it was in black and white, quite literally.

She wasn't seeing things. She wasn't dreaming since she had just woken up. It was a sign from fate, that she could not die just yet. A sign that not everything for her was over just yet. A message that she still had one last promise to keep.

And something in her bones today, as she slowly woke up from the chair she had fallen asleep on thinking about what had been, told her that a special day would arrive soon and that her patience and perseverance had not been in vain.

She allowed a small ghost of a smile to form on her tear stained face. Then with a slight spring in her step, she frisked downstairs to take a walk outside before supper was ready, her gaze going off into the far distance where her old home lay.

 **Thank you so much Witch's house fans for reading. It really has been a long journey for me to write this story, and I know many of you don't see the reference but I really have been trying. I just feel that some characters really do have emotion and empathy despite looking completely evil and I feel that deserves a story. Please tell me if I've been doing well. Please tell me what you think because I really have been trying so bad and it takes a lot of work to think up these stories and check them for errors.**

 **Thank you everyone, and as always I will see you in the next chapter. Buh bye.**

 **Love: Zman123**


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